


City of Night

by Vana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: AU - Characters in Exile, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 17:04:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11384565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vana/pseuds/Vana
Summary: Thank you toThe_Plaid_Slytherinfor this amazing idea and for introducing me to this exchange, and for all your incredible writing. I wish this were as intricate as you deserve. Thank you toSir_Bedeverefor the beta(s) and for holding my hand through the process. So much love and gratitude to you both.





	City of Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/gifts).



Davos Seaworth always thought the cruelest thing that the queen had done, amongst all her honorable deeds and peacemaking, was to exile Stannis Baratheon to live out his days in the very city in which his erstwhile priestess had been born and raised. 

Asshai and its gods were symbolic of Stannis’ failure — his failure to win the throne, his failure to save his family, his failure to end the Long Night. He woke every day in the accursed city with the knowledge that Melisandre, and by extension all the men and women she had persuaded to join her cause, had put her trust in him and him alone, and that he had failed them. 

She vowed that Stannis was the promised one who would unite the earth and wind and water and fire to do battle against the Great Other and restore springtime to Westeros and Essos both. The frozen countries would flow again with rushing streams. Buds would grow thick on the trees, fruiting and flowering out for the starving and dying. The universe itself would sing once Stannis ascended, promised Melisandre, and the darkness would subside forever. But he never came to power — half his army cut down by traitors, the rest fallen to their knees before the new reign: that of fire, blood, and dragons.

Stannis was named a pretender to the throne and sentenced to die at the hand of the onetime slave-trader Jorah Mormont. But the queen took pity — she was merciful, she said. On the very steps of the Sept of Baelor where King Joffrey had slain Eddard Stark, Daenerys Targaryen had stayed her executioner’s hand and in ringing tones she had said:

_Stannis Baratheon, you are guilty of treason and grave crimes. But you have suffered much. Your family has been slain. Your priestess, even, has perished to powers greater than her own. Your brothers, your lady wife and your daughter are all dead. Would that the little Lady Shireen had lived. But I am merciful, and in her stead, you shall live._

Davos remembered the crowd rising up as one then, shouting her praises. He was listening to Daenerys so intently — what would be the fate of his king, the only living man who mattered? — that the sudden crash of their outcry had almost made him jump out of his skin.

_You will be escorted to Asshai-by-the-Shadow. Far away from the temptations of power, you shall live out the rest of your days in peace. And if you return to Westeros, your life is forfeit. There will be no second chance, Lord Stannis._

And so Melisandre of Asshai had given way to Stannis of Asshai. 

 

The city of night, Davos sometimes called it when he awoke of a morning and missed the bright, wet Rainwood fiercely. In Asshai, even midday was dark and fetid. Davos wondered if the priestess had come of age without ever seeing the sun. 

In Asshai, the gutters ran red with rusty water and Davos sometimes thought it must be mixed with blood — the silent walls must contain secrets he only hoped he would never discover. In Asshai, the vastness of the city swallowed up memory of forest and orchard. Davos could still recall rapid rivers and still meadows. But every dim sunrise pushed those memories farther away. 

All he had now was Stannis.

As Davos diminished in the heavy, dark air of Asshai, Stannis seemed to become more solid. He was made of sounder stuff than even Davos had ever dreamed. He stood tall as ever, regal and stern as the day he had named Davos his Hand, the Hand of the King. Davos could still feel the sword on his shoulder and, even more vividly, the warm hand that helped him from the ground where he knelt. Here in Asshai, Stannis moved through filth and palace, slave market and library, with the same unerring resolve with which he had stalked the corridors of Dragonstone. He could not be called cheerful, but neither could he be called—

“Morose,” Stannis pronounced the word one evening at supper. “Lord Davos, you have grown morose.”

“Sire?” Davos looked up from where he had been idly stirring at his soup. The flavors in it were both overpowering and limp and he knew he would not eat it. He would rather have a bowl of brown from Flea Bottom. Rats might be cooked into it, but no sorcery ever would be.

“You needn’t call me ‘sire,’ Lord Davos,” Stannis said. He looked amused. “As you may be aware, I have no subjects here.”

Was Stannis making a jape? How was that possible? “Nay, Your Grace,” he said, lowering his eyes. “You have one yet.”

A flush stained the king’s austere features. 

“Ever devoted, Davos,” he murmured. Davos’ stomach lurched as it did whenever his king spoke in that low tone made just for him. It was a sensation both pleasant and unpleasant in the same way as quaffing a whole skin of wine at once was — dizzying, intoxicating. Stannis had always made him feel so, but over the years, he had learned to swallow it down.

Stannis cleared his throat. “That is why you are here in Asshai. You know that Maester Samwell and Tyrion Lannister intervened with the queen to allow me a bodyguard, so to speak. I remember that fool of a Massey thought it might be himself who was chosen.”

Davos had to chuckle at the audacity of the man they called the Smiler. “I thought Justin Massey also fancied he’d be picked as the queen’s consort.”

“For so many roles as Massey envisioned himself filling, he would have to split himself into at least ten men.”  
“Something Richard Horpe would have done willingly, I’ll wager.”

“Willingly and handily.” Stannis’ lip curled again in that suppressed smile. 

Davos found his spirits lightening, speaking with Stannis this way. As though they were not prisoners, doomed to die in a land of darkness. All at once Davos realized that Stannis felt more free here, without the eyes of the court, or the ghosts of his brothers, looking on in judgment. Was it possible that Stannis was content to be a nameless exile in this accursed place, with his onion knight his only companion?

“It was little Missandei who put your name forward,” he said. “Daenerys had thought it too dangerous to have both of us in Essos, like unruly pupils a maester did not trust to study together. She wanted to keep us separated for her own peace of mind. I sat listening, wondering which of half a dozen cretins or simpletons I could expect to accompany me on a dreadful dull, and dangerous, voyage. Missandei spoke on your behalf.”

“The girl reminds me of Princess Shireen,” Davos ventured. Neither man could speak of Shireen without choking on regrets and sadness. 

“You speak truth, Davos.” Stannis’ gaze turned faraway for a moment. “Missandei and Shireen were both everlasting fond of you. Missandei said — I remember her words — ‘Only Davos Seaworth will keep him in Essos. Only his fealty will save them both.’ But now, Lord Davos, I think the girl was wrong.”

Davos’ head spun and his heart sank. “Sire? … Lord Stannis? You doubt my loyalty?”

“No. I doubt your capability.”

Too stung to speak, Davos just waited. He had stood at Stannis’ side through battle after battle. He had cheated death more times than he could count to return to his liege lord. With his onions and salt fish, he had saved the man’s very life. What else could he possibly prove to his king?

“You look strong and hale as ever to an outsider, but I know you, Davos. I have known you long and well. You are grief-stricken and you are dying by inches here. I cannot bring back your wife and your sons and I cannot restore your lands to you. Nor can I return the years you have given to me. But I can send you home.” Stannis fidgeted his fingers along the edge of the table uncharacteristically. “Daenerys’ little scribe, I believe, will speak for you again.”

“No!" Davos cried, unconsciously rising from his chair. 

A world without Stannis opened up like a chasm before him, darker than any Shadow. “No,” he said, getting ahold of himself. There was no question of sadness now, or homesickness or heartache. “You cannot.”

Stannis’ blue eyes opened wide, his eyebrows arched above them. There was something in his gaze that Davos could not read, and it was not anger. “ _Cannot_ , you say?”

As Daenerys Targaryen had said, there were no second chances. Davos crossed to his king in one strong step. He pulled Stannis to him as he had dreamt of doing since first he laid eyes on the starving young lord at Storm’s End. He held Stannis’ rough cheek against his own for one brilliant, blissful moment. Then he kissed his king, clumsily but thoroughly, heedless of anything but showing Stannis just how little he could bear the thought of parting from him. 

“I have been weak,” Davos said, when he pulled away. “I have despised Asshai, not only for its own gloom but for what it meant to you. The red witch and her lies—”

“Those I also believed,” Stannis reminded him. “She thought she heard and understood her god, but she erred, as I did … about so many things.” He laid his hand on Davos’; the heat of it made Davos’ breath quicken. The intensity of everything left unsaid crackled between them. It would remain unspoken — for now. Davos had better things to do than talk.

“I too have made mistakes. But as for sending me away?” He reached for Stannis again, gentling his kiss this time, savoring the feeling of taking what he had wanted for so long and feeling Stannis growing pliant under his attentions. “I beg you, Your Grace, to think better of it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [The_Plaid_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Plaid_Slytherin/) for this amazing idea and for introducing me to this exchange, and for all your incredible writing. I wish this were as intricate as you deserve. Thank you to [Sir_Bedevere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sir_Bedevere/) for the beta(s) and for holding my hand through the process. So much love and gratitude to you both.


End file.
